angela merkel's preferred choice has been elected by the ruling german christian democratic union to succeed her as its leader fifty six year old anna grant crown karrenbauer many medical takes over amid increasing discontent with mainstream parties and as surgeon support for the far right dominant cain reports from hamburg . in the end it was a close contest decided by a margin of just thirty five votes out of almost a thousand some wondered whether an eclipse come as closeness to angela merkel would be a help or a hindrance with her victory the cd you can now expect a period of evolution not revolution. here it is a mood. if we have the courage we will live in the strong year of which will complete open towards the inside and security with the outside if we have the courage we will live in a europe which will finally make the year a stable and we will live in a year with the european security council and the european army which does not just

articulate but implements a common security interests her closest rival melts it spent a decade on the sidelines forced there by angela merkel despite there once having been allies he returned with a promise to take his party to the right and with straight talking both domestically and on the international stage ones even for more. i mean you probably know i'm a true friend of the united states but from time to time the americans need a clear message and that message is credible when it's not just germany delivering it but when the entire e.u. says this is not how we want it americans accept strength not weakness merit says strong showing means he can now expect to have much greater influence in the party if he wants it in one sense winning this election is the easy part now and then that compound must persuade voters in germany states and in the general election to go and she and her. parts and other ones to vote for. but that's for the future

right now the c.d.u. is witnessing the passing of an era albeit one in which the chancellor will not be handing over ultimate power any time soon dominant came out just era borg. where the next about still ahead on al-jazeera china launches the wilds fast driver to explore the dark side of the main. from the clear blue sky of the doha morning. to the fresh fruits and breeze in the city of love. hello again welcome back what we have seen some rain showers causing some flooding across parts of the western of on over the last few days also affecting parts of turkey the good news is a lot of that rain is going to be making its way towards the northeast over the next few days residual showers will be

a problem across iraq here on saturday so baghdad twenty aleppo fourteen degrees but we do expect that when that rain pulls out still it's going to be quite cool across much of the area beirut the rain is coming into play for you with the temperature there on sunday of about nineteen degrees well down here cross the gulf really not looking too bad as we go through the rest of the week in and into the beginning of the week so doha a beautiful day for you at twenty seven degrees here on saturday down here towards muscat seasonal for you at twenty nine and really not changing as we go towards sunday we are picking up a few clouds here towards the northwestern part of saudi but we don't expect to see much in terms of rain maybe a scattered rain drop or two but not anything in terms of flooding there well down here across parts of southern africa we are going to see more clouds coming into play for cape town rain continues for durban as well as johannesburg on saturday maybe even increasing as we go towards the end of the weekend but up here towards harare it is going to be a mostly cloudy day if you are twenty five in madagascar seeing a temperature and rain at about twenty nine he's. the weather sponsored by cattle

and race. a reporter's retreat in a brutal civil war if the commodore hadn't been the israeli invasion would not have been so well. the commodore had become a journalistic center you could be in the safe enclave and then you went out into civil war i started off leaving the school of a suite at the commodore hutto the next room i was in was underground in a tiny prison so as a hostage beirut the commodore war hotels on al-jazeera. welcome back. a reminder of our top stories this hour u.s.

federal prosecutors have directly implicated donald trump in campaign finance crimes during his presidential bid they also say moscow reached out to his associates as far back as twenty fifteen special counsel robert muller and government lawyers have recommended a substantial prison time to transform the lawyer. u.s. prosecutors are seeking the extradition of the chief financial officer of chinese telecoms company huawei men one who was arrested in canada and is facing charges of fraud she is accused of violating u.s. sanctions against iran. germany's ruling christian democratic union party has elected an a gret crime karrenbauer to replace angela merkel as the party leader caraballo is merkel's protege and will lead the party in the next election amid a surge in support for the far right. the french government is deploying thousands of police officers onto the streets in anticipation of another weekend of

anti-government demonstrations police are already being heavily criticized for a video of a group of students being arrested went viral david schaper reports from paris. to the streets of paris in force openly a new front of protest against president i outrage was growing at the tactics used by riot police gets high school students demonstrating outside the french capital. this video shows them being forced to deal with their hands behind a police officer can be heard saying now there's a clause. youngest amongst them a people aged twelve. the french interior minister said the images had to be seen in context. green the pure observer is over the past few days the students having joined by about one horace with it yields are met with clubs an incendiary devices

and attorney to pick a fight with the police to have a little i the french education minister described the pictures as shocking but said the violence convulsing france justified the heavy handed policing it was not an opinion shared by the students in paris more new friends has always been the country where we can say with people being gay and getting this tweet saying. and their mistakes and. now is my point like they will hold true to demonstrate because the. police officers are very. very like by a limited power and i don't think the students joining the protests were just here in the fires but right across the country is adding a new dimension and a new from a mentor to the protests of the interior minister went to inspect the armored cars that will be deployed by the police for the first time in paris at saturday's demonstrations that were used to clear barricades and burning roadblocks. he said

these last few weeks a monster has been born that has run away from its creators. dozens of tourist attractions will be closed down in the capital for what the l a vessel calling act for of the revolt the authorities have also ordered the shutdown of schools of luxury boutiques restaurants and businesses in the seans of easy david chaytor al-jazeera paris. the u.s. state department says russia and syria falsely accused opposition fighters of the chemical attack in aleppo last month the alleged gas attack into up to one hundred people on november twenty fourth the u.s. says it has credible information that pro-government forces lighting. tear gas against civilians it also says both countries are using the attack as an opportunity to undermine a cease fire in rebel controlled province. hundreds of jordanians have been protesting against what they describe as the government's corrupt economic policies

. they gathered outside government headquarters demanding prime minister step down they're angry over an income tax hike that's due to take effect in the new year and earlier tax hike planned to massive protests forcing the resignation of the previous prime minister in june. disagreements of months the second day of talks aimed at ending the war in yemen the two sides are at odds over reopening the airport in sanaa and who will manage the port of her data the saudi backed government and who see delegations missing in a village north of stockholm. a deal to cut global oil production has been struck in vienna the so-called opec plus group has nations agreed to hold back a combined one point two million barrels a day they're trying to prop up the price which has fallen from eighty five dollars in october to sixty this week but it needed the agreement of non aipac member

russia to seal the deal paul brennan reports from the austrian capital. for more than forty years opec controlled the global oil industry the group's near monopoly keeping a tight rein on supply and on prices the events of this week in vienna shows those days are truly over despite consensus that a cuts in production is needed to stop a slide in the oil price thursday's gathering of just the opec member states failed to agree to tell the numbers and so on friday as the meeting expanded to include non opec members all eyes were on alexander novak the russian energy minister but she was after thorough analysis which we have been conducting of the market situation will be ready to come to me chill understanding on how to take corporation further. the final figures opec members will reduce output by eight hundred thousand barrels a day the non-a pick countries will hold back a further four hundred thousand barrels iran libya and venezuela will be exempted

the prospect of cutting one point two million barrels a day was enough to push brant crude above sixty three dollars from below fifty nine dollars the previous day go back to the supply demand we believe that there are substantial volumes out there as a result of releasing the spare capacity that you to be. withdrawn and we hope that we will come to an agreement where all. producers will contribute with. equal cuts across the board there was significant transparency and who was going to be doing a credit for for example saudi government laid out their path to basically removing barrels the russian government also gave a. and there when they're about what their words actions would be very think this statement was actually more transparent than expected i think it actually is a more robust than we expected in the last couple days but what happens here in vienna is only part of the picture the united states is now the world's biggest crude oil producer now really eclipsing russia and with saudi arabia. the fact is

opec no longer calls the shots this is hard for compromise deal on the fact it's been so difficult time for sauces the limits now. still question marks as to how long the deal down here will actually last. al-jazeera vienna japan's parliament has passed a new law opening the door to nearly three hundred fifty thousand foreign workers in a country where immigration has long been taboo the measure will be in effect over five years starting in april. and skilled workers will be allowed in under a different schemes it's aimed at reducing labor shortages in a country with an aging population. south korea is fighting to reduce air pollution but domestic efforts alone enough to deal with the problem

a large portion of the country's air pollution comes from outside explains. wearing masks to filter out the fire has become the norm for people in south korea especially during the winter and the world health organization says the daily average standard for all to five that can be allowed and damaging is twenty five micrograms per cubic meter and here in south korea in november we've seen that number hit as high as five times or more of that daily average standard. the city does enjoy the occasional blue skies but just days after china turned on its public heating systems in november that blanket of air drifted across the yellow sea to the korean peninsula and the air pollution numbers in seoul were in the red again. when the air quality gets worse an advisory warning is enforced forcing businesses and construction sites that emit air pollutants to stop and also battling big age diesel vehicles from entering the city. eight hundred of these special vehicles are

also dispatched to suck up dust off the streets over the past twelve months they removed sixteen point five tons of it equivalent to pollutants generated by over thirty six thousand to diesel fuel cars. but despite such efforts to calm domestic root causes pollution still blankets the skies and enjoying to report with not shows that one third of souls find dust travels from china even during seasons with relatively low pollution pushing the south korean government to seek for closer cooperation with china to curb air pollution in the country. to reinforce cooperation with foreign cities we've been hosting an international forum to improve quality in northeast asia in particular we signed an agreement with beijing and have been conducting joint policy studies to improve the quality china has lowered as targets and how much winter missions should be cut down

compared with the stricter measures imposed last year analysts say that china may be reassessing its priorities while it's in the middle of a trade war with the united states by focusing more on economic growth than fighting air pollution which means south korea's air problems this winter are likely to get worse. zambia's constitutional court has ruled that president who is eligible to stand for reelection in twenty twenty one supporters celebrated the disk. janelle side of the course and your sarka younger took office for eighteen months after the death of president michael saucer and twenty cysteine he won a full sized the following year. presidential candidates are rallying supporters across the democratic republic of congo for upcoming elections twenty men and one woman are competing to succeed joseph kabila the latest about the outbreak and security problems are among the big issues on voters' minds or about unmanly reports. people stream onto the streets of because in their

thousands all to support opposition candidates in the democratic republic of congo's presidential race all with hopes of political change to men felix just ahead he and batelco marry him have joined forces promising changes including regional security and jobs. and completely are very happy because the leaders came today people want to tell the government that they need to create jobs and may expect safety i and safety is a big concern in the northeast where there's been decades of fighting between rebel groups. just a few hours after opposition candidate marching this to benny on thursday seventeen people were killed in an attack by the armed group the allied democratic forces the u.n. says violence is hampering response to a recent outbreak in the region there are twenty one candidates competing in the

presidential race joseph kabila who's been running the country for seventeen years would not take on another term really for some he's been accused of vote rigging in the past and his final term expired two years ago. but his refusal to step down sparked by rallies dozens were killed he's chosen emanuel dari as his successor but he's on the e.u. sanctions list speak human rights crimes in the region. which he was responsible for at the interior. one of the biggest issues i leave you president is the outbreak which is now the second largest on record would. have been taken in order to control the break and we're currently controlling to break in different areas but now. people are prepared to vote for a new leadership many who violence doesn't hinder the effort against the fatal disease. al-jazeera humans have been exploring the surface

of mars remotely for more than two decades but for the first time we've had sounds from the red planet now says new mas insight land touchdown on the planet last month and it sent back recordings of wind rolling on the plains the low frequency rumblings of wind across the land as solar panels the result of the planet's than a density china has launched a rover to explore the fall side of the moon if it succeeds it would make history by becoming the first country to do so the chinese live in a probe mission blasted off on a rocket from the southwest and she chat and launch center early on saturday it's expected to land around the new year and carry out surveys of the untouched terrain . and these are the top stories federal prosecutors in new york have to regularly

implicated donald trump in campaign finance crimes during his presidential bid separately prosecutors with robert miller's team investigating alleged russian interference say moscow reached out to his then personal lawyer michael cohen as far back as twenty fifteen more now from she had her tansey on what this means for president. two bits regarding cohen from robert that are of interest that current provided the special counsel's office with useful information concerning certain discrete russian related matters core to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with company executives during the campaign now that could just be more dodgy business dealings which would relieve some questions about trump's motivations during the campaign or as some pundits i'm sure hoping for this could be something to do with russian collusion again we do not know so we will be very clear about that third current provided relevant and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the white house during the twenty

seventeen twenty eighteen time period this is off to the campaign we didn't know what it was looking into about period during first year in office coase chief financial officer many rungs zero will spend the weekend in custody in canada with a bail hearing due on monday u.s. prosecutors are seeking her extradition accusing her of breaching sanctions on iran china says she's done nothing wrong a white nationalist you rammed his car into a crowd of protesters in the u.s. last year has been found guilty of fasts degree murder james fields killed head the high and left dozens of other people injured in the attack in charlottesville germany is ruling christian democratic union party has elected on a gret crime karrenbauer to replace angela merkel as the party leader carabao is merkel's protege and will lead the party in the next election amid a sad and support for the far right disagreements have marked the second day of

talks aimed at ending the war in yemen the two sides are at all odds over reopening the airport and sana and who will manage the port of had data those are the headlines the news continues here with me after talk to al-jazeera. we understand the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the world so no matter how you take it al-jazeera will bring you the news and current events that matter to you al-jazeera. you can. see. i'm adrian brown in taipei pickup at all of taiwan but for the past sixty nine years has been self-governing but this place is also claimed by mainland china and in the past it has threatened repeatedly to take taiwan back by force if necessary they just had

local elections here and the ruling party did very badly china it seems may well have been a factor i've been talking to joseph taiwan's foreign minister who has the job of selling taiwan's message overseas at a time when china is doing all it can to isolate taiwan internationally he admits it's a frustrating job i can not think of any other country that has a more difficult foreign policy then taiwan china has been trying very hard to isolate taiwan internationally josephs taiwan's foreign minister talks to al-jazeera. joseph we welcome to talk to al-jazeera the last time i met you you were secretary general of the democratic progressive party you had just secured the presidency the legislature your

party had done very well in those elections we've just had local elections and things haven't gone so well what what went wrong ruling party we need to care about all kinds of policies. and the difficult thing is that if we want to be seeing us or responsible government responsible political party you know we need to carry our policies in a moderate way and taiwan has been seeing a moderate country and taiwan is a responsible country but of course that is coing to be seen by our own supporters that the reforms the pace of reform is too small and therefore they may not be a supportive passionate as before but what was the issue the made voters turn away from you do you think was it china was it the economy was it same sex marriage in every major election here in taiwan china is always a factor but it might not be the determining factor in the prison show that of

course. or the policy as being at the bait it might be seeing more important than in other directions and this is a local election even though we're trying to factor is playing a little part of it but it's not an overwhelming factor in this particular election and china's trying to interfere and we saw that china is gearing up its information campaign or airing its support for popular candidates and that might be the small part of the china factor is playing in this will actually what evidence is there of china meddling in the election campaign the a volume on the internet seem to be heavily influenced by the chinese operation will be ip addresses in china they know things like that for example the ip address in china or somewhere set up by china and they try to infiltrate with their messages there is the common knowledge over here in taiwan the fifty cents

army in china they are roaming the power one internet world for example some of our candidates have their facebook. with the chinese languages in their facebook account and this is being seen us china trying to influence how was the election and of course china is also trying to getting connected with some of the local politicians or local organizations some of them trying to get benefit from china things like that it's been seeing us china trying to interfere in our election do you think that china's leaders will feel that their strategy of strangling taiwan economically diplomatically is working and that now they're going to double down on their efforts to try to bring about reunification in five to ten years even sooner. that is something that many people here in taiwan

have been discussing about and if taiwan selection can be seeing chinese success of their interference then it's going to be very difficult to stop china from trying again and again or double down on the interference in action and this is only a little correlation and we have seen china trying to interfere in our early election process but when we have the nation oil action in twenty twenty china might want to gear up its interference campaign against taiwan but i slice it will be to china ploy a little part in always the most important part is the people's decision and us i see it people are intelligent enough to the site you know what is right and what is wrong one thing is clear from these elections is that democracy in taiwan is is

alive and kicking this china of course always likes to make mischief at times like this and it says that the result shows that actually most people don't agree with your ministrations sort of prove it depend. stones and how they got a point. they might but they also got it all wrong in two thousand and sixteen when the president was elected she was elected on the premise. here to a city school and therefore this government is going to be very hard to describe support independence if you look at the situation here in taiwan the p.r.c. does not have any jurisdiction over taiwan taiwan is running by itself you know we have a president we have a part of them and we have free media and therefore taiwan in essence is independent and any government where there is came to the government or that the people government is going to run this place and it's not independence or pro

unification is just taiwan taiwan by itself one thing i don't understand you said the the president except the status quo so if she does the then why is china reacting the way it is because china always says we want taiwan to accept there is but one china and taiwan is a part of it you'll saying the president accepts that no the president accepts the status quo and call it a if you look at taiwan itself we have not being administered. by china for any single day china never has any jurisdiction over taiwan or any single day so the fact of the reality in taiwan or the status quo in between taiwan and china it's that two sides are separated and for china to claim that we are part of them and they want to unify us against the will of that one its people and that is against the status quo and of course that it's not going to be supported by our

people and that is not the point of the government they might support it now though i mean we did that in the election show that perhaps people felt that the stance of your government china was was wrong but perhaps it's time to say. we do except we're part of china i mean if you said that. china would loosen the economic news tomorrow and things would go back the way they were if you do a public opinion survey again today and i'm sure people are going to tell you the opposite i think that people are going to say that no we are not part of china and we are not going to pursue indication with china even though some of the local candidates in this election have the tendency of pursuing better relations with china but seeing them you know pursuing a policy of unifying with china is going to be wrong in after all this is the election and dog of course that relations has not been debated in this election in there for. or trying to factor is not the key factor in this election and therefore

we should not interpret the election as if taiwan people choose to unify was china or to choose to push through another route was china you are in charge of spreading taiwan's message to the world but how hard is that when taiwan's not part of the united nations you're not part of the world health assembly interpol how difficult is it for you the main the frustrations must be enormous you're absolutely right i can not think of any other country that has a more difficult foreign policy then taiwan china has been trying very hard to isolate taiwan internationally to prevent taiwan from having official relations with other countries or to prevent taiwan from participating in international organizations in china is also trying to change how once. when taiwan

is being described by international businesses try to change taiwan from taiwan into taiwan come on china or taiwan province of china and. in the ministry of foreign affairs over here we need to develop substantive relations with delight my to countries and we also have to safeguard those countries that are still having relations with us with taiwan. and in the last two years five countries that have relations with you have defected to china that must hurt it is difficult for us and what we try to do is to make sure that the senior government officials in senior government officials in our diplomatic elyse are highly connected and i think most important trait of taiwan is taiwan is that democracy already and we have very proud of that and many of my countries continue to priest i want us a beacon and because taiwan is already

a democracy and therefore if we are able to develop closer and closer ties with like minded countries but when former friends like el salvador became a fast so say sort of we're going to recognize beijing there must be this sort of sense of betrayal because these countries up until then point have been your friends you are your allies that's right when that happened when they decided that they want to establish diplomatic ties with the people's republic of china and sever ties with taiwan of course people here feel betrayed and that kind of sentiment can be very strong here you know since they decide to choose china you know that's their choice and the important thing for taiwan is that we want to make sure that those diplomatic allies remain loyal to taiwan are getting the right thing from taiwan for example education campus city building job training or agricultural development things like this will continue to help these countries and

i think many of the countries realize that they are not able to get those kinds of support from the people's republic of china but they are getting state the support from taiwan and those items that i just mentioned what was it a surprise when el salvador defected or did you know in advance it was going to happen. we did take some signs that all the by negotiating with china and therefore you know we try very hard to see whether there's anything else we can work on so you offer the money what would you do to become like a bidding war you don't know if this doesn't work that way my deputy travel to el salvador speaking to the seamy officials over there and i myself also trouble to salvador speaking to their very senior officials including the president himself and to ask him. if there's any issue in the

relationship that we should work on more in what they say is that every aspect of the relationship is going very well and therefore they try to hide from us their negotiations with china and the leadership of salvador not only trying to highlight from taiwan they also try to hide it from the united states or other countries in their secret negotiations with china is it money that wins them over china to simply says how much do you need if you read the news of these couple days you can realize that it's money. and it's china offering a huge amount of money from the public record these couple days china for it fifteen billion u.s. dollars to el salvador and of course that is not the game that i want to see in what taiwan was this friendship is to be able to help the people it seems the china strategy is to pick off one by one those remaining countries that have diplomatic

relations with taiwan yes. which raises the question what happens if they succeed in doing that and there are no countries left. what happens there as a minister of foreign affairs you know i wouldn't try to envision that kind of result but i think china also has other objectives over taiwan then you know cutting off all the diplomatic elyse off taiwan if you listen to the top speed top leaders of china they continue to say that they want to win hearts and minds of the people but when they engage in the very negative way of isolating taiwan or choking off time with the international space that is the opposite of what they say they want to achieve winning hearts and minds of the taiwanese people and you can see point of the chinese negative campaign against taiwan is going on

but this in between taiwan and china is getting further and further apart and i'm sure that it's not what china wants to see but part of your job is is to sell taiwan to to promote taiwan. how do you describe taiwan how do you promote taiwan when you when you when you go around the world and visit various international organizations what's the key point you stress the first point of course taiwan is that they. want is the mature democracy and one can be seeing us a model of democracy in this part of the world and the second aspect is time wise. status in economic development at a time when one is already being seeing us a model of the economy developing us well even though the growing rib roast rate in the last few years might not be great but taiwan is undergoing trends formation from the old. mini factoring based economy now to innovation based economy

if you look at the. trade relations between taiwan in europe which is very far away the figure is growing and if you look at the investment of taiwan companies in the very far away country see in europe or in india or in japan or in the united states or in mexico the number is also growing and therefore it's important to do business with i want to swell the situation in the taiwan straits seems fraught at times china has been carrying out military exercises as taiwan has china's been sailing warships very close to to waters the united states has been sending warships into those waters is there a worry that the brinkmanship gets out of control and you're you risk conflict. of course started something that that this is you makers here are watching very carefully but i think we need to watch on our own back we need to watch our own security you know if china is coming too close to our water or it coming too close

to our airspace we need to have the sufficient defense capabilities to defend ourselves and from whatever we can see is the chinese. angelas m that is causing all this trouble in the war any kind of effort in the international community trying to reduce this threat of war or trying to stop china's expansionism should be welcomed as a trump presidency been good for taiwan yes very much so president trump received a phone call from presidents high to congratulate him and vice president pence has also being a very strong supporter of taiwan he has a track record when he was in the congress in the. secretary of state. has also a long track record of supporting taiwan so altogether we have seen a very friendly gesture coming from the ministration to what i want and that

gesture includes the chance to buy more arms from from washington but you still can't get f. thirty five still stuff militarily that the united states. i won't sell you that must be a bit frustrating because if they were a true friend they'd give you what you wanted they give us what we want and we are in the series of discussions with the united states but of course you know i cannot get into the details of the discussion but if you look at the in june twenty seventh. they already made available to taiwan the huge package of arms and that is what we want and that is what we need and i think in time once defense much more than just one particular item in taiwan in the united states of being discussing very intensely how taiwan can. beef up its own teeth and that we are trying

every aspect rather than focusing on one item when president zine had that phone conversation with president donald trump and the oft would seem to suggest that perhaps he wasn't necessarily bound by the one china policy anymore your spirits must have arisen here in taiwan because for the first time it began to seem possible that perhaps the united states was going to walk away from something that's been the cornerstone of the u.s. relations for forty years we are more realistic and pragmatic thinking along the lines of we understand that the united states has a relationship with china to a minister and of course maintaining good relations with china is always one of the policy priority of the united states and we are fine with that policy because that policy has room for us to work with the united states in a few days' time president trump and president xi jinping are going to meet at the g. twenty s.

taiwan is part of the current feud between washington and beijing what do you want to come out of that meeting what does taiwan month. well if you look at the high level meetings in between the united city synch china. policy or taiwan the subject being raised by the chinese leader is almost in every occasion but the response from the u.s. decision makers is almost always the same but he would have his say this is abide by its one china policy and if taiwan becomes a topic in their discussion i'm sure president trump or senior officials in the united states is going to come up with a similar statement at the moment china is led by possibly the most powerful leaders since chairman mao do you think he wants to be the chinese president the brings taiwan back into the fold because given the level of intimidation the wargames that have been going on in the taiwan straits that seems to be what we're

heading towards. possible but i think that's a possible. throughout the world you know what. thinking about if i were to put myself in his shoes you know i would have difficult times in understanding why taiwan should be a priority in his policy look at the regional situation inside china. this week years problem that he needs to deal with there's a problem in the team that he's has to deal with and you know the catholics are being seen by him as the one who is capable of doing the old man's asia and therefore he needs to use a lot of force in the suppressing the freedom of religion in china and other than that the more important factor is a slowing economy slowing economy means social instability into

an authoritarian country that might be the most difficult to maintain the legitimacy of that government and therefore discipline. for president xi to warry about and his relations with japan it's not good relations with korea might not be good you know there's a tension in south china sea there's a whole relations for him to manage with that relation with the united states and therefore he has so many problems to deal with and if if he wants to you know overcome the taiwanese issue that might put less. important issue on his plate. for him what keeps you awake at night. the most difficult thing told you a my position is china trying to interfere in our relations with the rest of the world. that will keep your weight sometimes not trade. our relations with that diplomatic ilyse that is something that we need to continue to trade sure and we

continue to watch out for to prevent china from having the. opportunity of grabbing them away from taiwan and we also worry about china's actions against how was participation in international organizations you know we continue to try to push through our. or membership in the some major international organizations and china is making it very difficult for us but my job is to tell the international community that the rights of the twenty three million people here in taiwan deserve to be recognized by the international community if a small country can be repressed and it isn't. organization the hills right of the town is the people should be recognized by the international community as well you know if a small countries can be represented in the international civil war if you're going to zation the rights of the taiwanese people should be recognized as well if

a cross country crime is very important to every country pie why should. not be left out to the interpol and therefore this is something that we continue to advocate and that war motivate myself to advocate to the international community and you'll keep up your efforts to try to rejoin the united nations i will continue to advocate that you know united nations is. organized or formed based on the concept that every country should be repressed and it in the united nations it will continue to try to. push through the goal all for being part of the united nations but before we can be a member of the united nations you know there are practical ways for taiwan to be able to make contribution for example in practical one as asia is like what i see below us at c.c.c. or w.h.o.

it's even difficult for us to make a contribution but what is important for us is to seek opportunity for taiwan to be able to make contributions to the u.n. system and just so our views around the world understand your saying taiwan is a country yes of course. we have a president that is democratically elected and i just so see that. nung. state or not country that has the president and we also have a parliament that is source or democratically elected and we have our own currency system and we have the military and we also have a ministry of foreign affairs that issue the passport and that is being recognized by the international community and taiwan is a country just like all other countries in the world and what name should it be at the united nations. we are not getting into that right now taiwan's the title is

the republic of china and i think this is what the people here are used to but of course. i want is also being called taiwan. the people here in taiwan are not discussing what kind of name time one should use to enter the united nation we are trying to participate but we are not trying to seek membership at this moment. joseph who thank you very much thank you thank you. it is an appalling crime that destroys the dignity of individuals and tears apart the fabric of communities. and congolese gone ecologists dennis macwhich have been awarded the twenty eight hundred nobel peace prize for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence in conflict zones. in an exclusive interview live from oslo we talked to this year's laureates about their fight for justice the

nobel interview and al jazeera exclusive al-jazeera wild follows the struggles of an iraqi painter a syrian screenwriter and a palestinian filmmaker as they come to terms with their lives as displaced artists in lebanon. art is always the first to go and the last to tell you. i've invented a new moment in my imagination building beirut's refugee artists on al-jazeera. federal prosecutors in the u.s. directly implicated president trump in illegal election campaign financing.

hello i'm the star and this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up a top executives at chinese telecoms giant huawei faces fraud charges in the u.s. accused of scouting sanctions on iran. passing the torch to many a longtime ally of the german chancellor succeeds as party leader. the first sounds of mas inside land a sense recordings of wind blowing on the red planet. it's been a day of multiple legal developments in the u.s. exposing donald trump's presidential campaign to greater public scrutiny memos released by prosecutors in new york have directly implicated trump in campaign finance crimes during his presidential bid separately prosecutors with robert

mullets team investigating alleged russian interference say moscow reached out to his then personal lawyer michael cohen as far back as twenty fifteen minutes team also says trump's former campaign manager paul man afford violated a plea deal by lying to them on five different matters including his contacts with a russian associate the white house says the court filings reveals nothing new or damaging about trump there are several strands to this story she had to tansey breaks it down for us from washington d.c. . shortly after the release of some of the prosecution documents the u.s. president expressed his lack of concern totally clears the president he wrote thank you it's not clear exactly what he was referring to but some believe the contents of the latest memos should provide some cause for concern for donald trump michael cohen was trump's longtime lawyer and fix he's pled guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations and it's this latter charge that now directly implicates the president in its filing prosecutors in new york say code made to

hush money payments to women in contravention of campaign finance law that filing says as cohen has now admitted with respect to both payments he acted in coordination with and at the direction of individual one individual one is assumed to be donald trump so prosecutors are directly implicating the president in the crime the special counsel's moment about co and confirmed what was already in the public domain about failed attempts to build a trump tower in moscow that continued even as trump was on the campaign trail expounding about his proposed russian foreign policy however there are two new areas which might be of concern to trump firstly miller writes cohen provided the special counsel's office with useful information concerning certain discreet russia related matters core to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with company executives juror in the campaign and cohen provided relevant and useful information concerning his contacts with persons connected to the white house during the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen time period. it's unclear what information miller is referring to during the campaign but it's striking cohen is

also discussing trump's first year in office with the special prosecutor. miller has also submitted a document about former trump campaign manager paul manifold he was convicted of illegal lobbying for the ukrainian government as well as financial fraud the special prosecutor says manifold broke a plea agreement reached to provide information in return for like his sentence this involves a redacted name miller says while negotiating the agreement mounted for provided information about redaction that was pertinent to an investigation in another district however after signing the plea agreement manifold told the government a different and exculpatory version of the events in addition miller says manifold lied about context he had with the trumpet ministration after he had reached that plea agreement the former director of the f.b.i. happened to be in capitol hill for a closed door questioning on friday he praised the special counsel's investigation but gave a reminder that a lot of questions remain the most important occasion of that is you don't know

anything about it except when he filed something court and that's what makes it so don't trump has now been implicated directly in campaign finance violations but it's not clear what these latest findings have to do with the russian collusion investigation if anything however taken in conjunction with this heavily redacted document that was filed earlier this week in conjunction with the investigation into a former security advisor michael flynn there's plenty of speculation she able to see out jazeera washington. well eliot we spoke to bruce fein who is a senior u.s. justice department official and he says while the fighting's hints at russia's intends to influence the campaign they don't prove that moscow was successful. i don't think certainly we have a smoking gun that connects you know russians with the trunk campaign based upon today's filings but we do have at least an inference that the russians were reaching out as early as two thousand and fifteen to the people seeking to

ingratiate themselves perhaps influence the outcome so it stablished as a motivation for the conspiracy if the terminology is right or collusion whether or not it reach fruition today's fallings are not definitive enough to give any answer but i do think what the filings show is mr trump statement that he's cleared in best a geisha is about to conclude is quite wrong headed it seems to me these falling suggest that we don't have light at the end of the tunnel there are important leads that have to be tracked down yet and this is not a green light for mr trump to think you know he's he's safe now. ways chief financial officer mango will spend the weekend in custody in canada with a bail hearing to you on monday u.s. prosecutors is seeking extradition accusing her of breaching sanctions on iran china says she's done nothing wrong christensen amy has the latest on the case threatening to stoke trade tensions between the welds two biggest economies just

off to the two sides reached a deal. among china's business elite among ones who is considered royalty the daughter of the founder of telecom giant way the company's c.f.o. and possible heir to the throne but to the united states mom is a wanted criminal the charge confirmed in the canadian court on friday fraud specifically using an unofficial weiwei subsidiary to do business with iran in violation of u.s. sanctions china's foreign ministry has condemned her arrest and demanded the evidence. you do what i can tell you is that neither canada nor the u.s. have provided any evidence to china that the person of the cases violated the laws of the two countries until now. canadian prosecutors acting on behalf of the us argued against freeing manon bail saying her wealth made her an extreme flight risk while her lawyer said she'd never do anything to embarrass her family or her

country in court filings the united states argued that mung was likely to flee to china if released on bail the united states believes that one way officials have been avoiding travel to the united states since april of two thousand and seventeen when they became aware of the investigation and furthermore that they had been moving u.s. based employees out of the country who could have been called to testify in the case that's why when they became aware of her travel to canada on november twenty ninth they requested her extradition. mom's arrest comes amid mounting trade tensions between the u.s. and china and news of her arrest rattled investors the dow closed down more than five hundred points for the week racing games for the year but experts say the case is not about train i think it's very much sanctions issue and the desire to make sure that people know that we aren't kidding when the u.s. imposes sanctions nevertheless it could complicate trade relations as the two

countries attempt to work out their differences kristen salumi al jazeera more now from adrian brown who's been following china's reactions from beijing. this case is being watched very closely by china's leaders and certainly the tone in state controlled media seems pretty unanimous that the charges against mung are politically motivated the global times newspaper for instance a really nationalistic leaning media outlet says the united states is guilty of a despicable rogue approach to china saying that the united states has brought these charges against mung because its companies are unable to compete against a giant like highway of course governments do have hard way under scrutiny at the moment they're worried about its close links to china's communist party and they worry that that has serious implications for national security at least one major

u.s. corporation is now advising its employees not to travel to china for the time being that said there is no sign whatsoever that china is planning to take any retaliatory action i think there's a clear reason for that we have a number of very important anniversaries coming up on december the eighteenth it will be the fortieth anniversary of reform and opening up here in china and president xi is due to deliver a very important speech and then on january the first next year it'll be forty years since the fall a stablish mint of diplomatic relations between china and the united states i wonder how that anniversary is now going to be marked in light of all that's happening right now a stampede in a nightclub in italy has killed six people and injured more than one hundred others the incident occurred on the adriatic coast italian media say people panicked and ran for the exits after someone sprayed and knocks a substance. angela merkel's preferred choice has been elected by the ruling german

christian democratic union to succeed her as its leader fifty six year old and a great crowd karrenbauer many machall takes over amid increasing discontent with mainstream parties and a surge in support for the far right dominic cain reports from hamburg. in the end it was a close contest decided by a margin of just thirty five votes out of almost a thousand some wondered whether an eclipse come as closeness to angela merkel would be a help or a hindrance with her victory the cd you can now expect a period of evolution not revolution. here it is a mood. if we have the courage we will live in the strong euro which will complete open towards the inside and security with the outside if we have the courage we will live in a europe which will finally make the year a stable and who will live in a year with the european security council and the european army which does not just

articulate but implements a common security interests her closest rival melts it spent a decade on the sidelines forced there by angela merkel despite there once having been allies he returned with a promise to take his party to the right and with straight talking both domestically and on the international stage ones even for more. i mean you probably know i'm a true friend of the united states but from time to time the americans need a clear message and that message is credible when it's not just germany delivering it but when the entire e.u. says this is not how we want it americans accept strength not weakness merit says strong showing means he can now expect to have much greater influence in the party if he wants.